


ninety percent of true love is acute, ear-burning, embarrassment

by R00bs_Teacup



Category: The Musketeers (2014)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Libraries, M/M, Meet-Cute, Trans Character
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-28
Updated: 2016-07-28
Packaged: 2018-07-27 09:23:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,508
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7612615
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/R00bs_Teacup/pseuds/R00bs_Teacup
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Porthos wants to join the library. There are cloaks and stupid literary opinions and more cloaks. And some capes. And Athos is just entirely... well, useless.</p>
            </blockquote>





	ninety percent of true love is acute, ear-burning, embarrassment

**Author's Note:**

> warnings: panic attacks, some dysphoria

“You’ll need two forms of identification, with full name, and proof of address, with matching name.”

 

Porthos stares across the desk at the librarian.

 

“Uh, I don’t have none of them things,” he says. “Is that the only way I can get a card?”

 

“Yep.”

 

Porthos tries to ask more questions, but the librarian is focussed on the queue behind him. Porthos moves aside and stands, looking around. His binder feels unbearably tight, and he feels nauseated. He’d been determined to get this done before heading home. He joins the queue to ask about where a bathroom might be. There are only two people in front of him. The librarian glares when he gets back to the desk. 

 

“No, we don’t have a public bathroom. You’ll have to walk down to Marks and Spensers.”

 

Porthos isn’t sure why this person is so angry with him, but he’s had quite enough of it. 

 

“I’m going to throw up. Shall I do that here?” Porthos says. 

 

The librarian scowls harder. 

 

“Please don’t make a scene.”

 

“Uh-huh,” Porthos says. 

 

“Ma’am-”

 

“Sir,” Porthos corrects, mostly absently. 

 

“You can get a card when you have ID and proof of address, and the bathroom is in Marks and Spencers.”

 

Porthos feels a flush of panic and sickness. He realises that there’s a very real possibility that he really will throw up here and now. He takes an unsteady step away from the counter, wondering which direction Marks and Spencers is. 

 

“Are you ill, sir?”

 

“Somethin’ like that,” Porthos mumbles, squeezing his eyes shut against dizziness. He should get a looser binder. Or not eat things. Just not eat anything ever. Or learn to be a fish so he doesn’t have to breathe. “Which way is Marks and Sparks?”

 

He’s guided by the elbow. He goes with it, and finds himself in a bathroom. He shuts the door, possibly in the face of the nice person who brought him, and kneels in front of the loo, tugging off his clothes to get at the binder. He panics, and can’t get it off. He gets stuck in half out and panics harder, trying to breathe. It just makes him throw up, which makes him cry because he hates throwing up. Which actually helps, because you have to breathe to cry. 

 

When he’s done he manages to get the binder the rest of the way off. He lies on his back on the floor, tears still pouring out of him, and lets the panic roll over him. Now the binder’s off it’s much easier to relax and let it come and go in waves. When he finds the energy he gets his t-shirt back on and sits on the toilet seat and plays Majong on his phone, wishing he had someone to text. He doesn’t know anyone here, though, and the people he knew back home are the reason he moved. He guides his thoughts away from that, focuses on the game, brings his attention the room around him, does four square breathing, and eventually manages to dig the sports bra out of his bag and get dressed. 

 

He gets himself together and washes his face, then leaves the loo. He finds himself in a small hallway. There’s someone leaning there, waiting for him, and he instantly flushes hot with embarrassment. They just smile, though, and straighten up from the wall. 

 

“We usually give the code out to families using the children’s library,” they say. “But if someone’s ill or needs it, we’re not arseholes. Except Rochefort, he’s an arsehole, but tomorrow’s his last day. I’m Athos, one of the librarians, do you want to come and talk through options for a card?”

 

Porthos nods, and follows them back to the main library. They show him to a seat at a desk and talks him through exactly what they need in order to issue a card. He doesn’t have any of the things, and he really, really doesn’t want to have things with his dead name, not in this shiny new-start life. 

 

“I don’t think I can get it done now, then,” Porthos says, when he’s got all the information. “I haven’t got anything.”

 

“You are still more than welcome to use the library. You can’t take books out, but you can use it as a study space, or come and read, or use the guest computers.”

 

Porthos nods, gathers up the leaflets he’s been given, and returns to his bedsit flat. It’s in a basement and is slightly damp, even though it’s summer and hot outside. At least, he thinks, sitting in front of his computer, he still has his job. The good thing about working from home. He’s still close enough to Swindon to go into the office the once a week he usually needs. English Heritage have been really good about his move. 

 

Porthos goes back to the library the next day, and stakes out a nice comfy chair near a window. He gets himself a couple of graphic novels to browse, as well as trawling the catalogue for a book close to the one he needs for work. He’s been attached to a project writing a book about the history of bricks, collating research and articles, drawings and research. He’s supposedly researcher and authority/consultant, but the chief editor was appointed through nepotism and has no idea what her job is. She keeps on forgetting budgetry and time constraints and Porthos has ended up doing project management and some writing and editing, too. 

 

He finds a couple of books that might be useful, gathers them too and adds them to his place. He wanders the shelves of fiction, looking for something easy. He decides on Terry Pratchett, Thief of Time, and takes that. He settles in, starting with the Pratchett. He switches between work and relaxation, reading for pleasure, the easy reading of the graphic novels, and the architecture. He’s half-dozing, taking a break, idly flicking through Blue is the Warmest Colour but mostly falling into a nap, when the air is stirred by a passing breeze. 

 

Porthos looks up, blinking away the muzz, and sees someone disappearing into the music library, a cloak billowing around them. A black, hooded cloak reaching all the way to the floor. Porthos gazes, and is dozy enough to get up and trail after them, curiosity piqued. He sees Athos, who helped him yesterday, behind the desk flicking through papers, cloak around his shoulders. Porthos wanders over and leans on the counter. 

 

“Can I help?” Athos asks. “Oh, you were in yesterday about a card. Did you find ID?”

 

“No,” Porthos says. He’s about to comment on the cloak, but his eye is drawn, in it’s check over the room, to an electric organ sat in the middle. “Do you do recitals?”

 

“No, it’s for the public to use,” Athos says. “Do you play?”

 

Porthos shakes his head, but goes over and sits down, unable to help himself, pulling the provided headphones on. Flea’s foster family had a piano, once, and she’d played, and had passed her lessons along, letting him come and have a go when he liked. He’s surprised by the muscle-memory that has his fingering lightly over scales and arpeggios, finding Chop Sticks without trouble. He feels over Fur Elise. 

 

He forgets the cloak and Athos for the moment, getting up to search the shelves for music he used to play. He finds some Grieg, and the Amelié soundtrack, and a grade one book of ‘Easy Classics’. Porthos settles at the organ and plays it as a piano, squinting at the music, trying to remember bass clef and how to play both hands. It comes back with surprising ease, and it’s such a relief, such joy. 

 

He remembers his stack of books and stops, after a while. Athos is gone, cloak and all. Porthos goes back to his window seat and finishes up. On his way out he catches sight of the edge of the cloak swishing into the children’s library, and gets a surprising hit of disappointment. The cloak is probably for something to do with children, not just a fashion statement, which is sad, because Porthos had liked that. 

 

“I want a cloak,” he decides. 

 

He spends the next day meandering around the charity shops, wandering town to find more. There’s tiny little vintage place, and he finds a cloak, but it’s about two feet too short. He asks the sales person about other vintage places, and ends up at the Town Hall, at a vintage fair. He spends a happy afternoon trying increasingly fantastic outfits in front of mirrors. He’s about to leave, to head back home, when he sees it. It’s hanging at the back of the hall, green and ornately embroidered. 

 

It’s femme, something for a lady, Victorian. Porthos hesitates, but it’s beautiful. There are gold threads and layers and intricate patterning. Lace sleeves and lattice panels. He’s offered a try, and he nods, taking it reverently, letting himself be draped in it. It hangs so nice, fits so perfectly. He looks in the mirrors, turning this way and that, checking the line of it, the drape, seeing if the slight swell of his breasts is shown off. It’s not. The high collar brings the eye to his face, the tailoring is sharp and flat, not accentuating feminine physicality. 

 

  

 

He buys it. Of course he does, he can’t help himself. He doesn’t wear it out, not quite comfortable with being so femme. He hasn’t found a queer space here, nor any queer friends, so he has nowhere safe to share his purchase. He wears it sat at his computer while he writes, and sends photos of it to his friends on Tumblr. That has to be enough, for now. He almost wears it to the office on Thursday, but thinks better of it. 

 

Porthos does wear it Friday. He goes to town and putters around getting chores done, going to the bank, checking his insurance on the flat, popping to the Robert Dyas to see about some kind of solution to his damp problem, going around the pound shop and picking up bits. He doesn’t wear the cape, but he carries it with him. He passes the library and goes in, and they have air con, and he unfolds the cape carefully and gets into it, going to sit in what he thinks of now as ‘his’ chair, by the window, collecting Pratchett and graphic novels and a Sarah Waters he’s been meaning to read on his way. 

 

Porthos feels safe there, tucked away in the corner. He takes off his shoes and ploughs through Thief of Time, starting on Night Watch at once. The sunshine outside makes him sleepy, and the words begin to slow on the page, getting further apart, shifting as he drowses. He falls asleep. The anxiety of moving, his first week in the new place, the lack of friends or even acquaintances, the loss of his queer space, the panic attack and dysphoria of early week, it all catches up on him and he falls deeply, deeply asleep, the safe feeling sending him right off. 

 

 

When he wakes it’s to six little faces peering at him, giggling. Two of them squeal and run off, but the others stay. A bold little person with white white skin and bright orange hair steps forwards and laughs at Porthos, pointing. Porthos raises an eyebrow, smiling, inviting them to tell him what’s funny. 

 

“You were snoring, it sounded like Thomas the Tank Engine.”

 

“Oh, yeah,” Porthos says. “Broke me nose a few times. Hey, I can make it click. Listen to this.”

 

He holds the bridge of his nose and shows how the cartilildge makes weird noises. The children giggle. 

 

“I can take it entirely off,” Porthos says, leaning forwards further. “But better not, in public. Bit difficult with the blood.”

 

The children shriek and when he pinches the bridge of his nose again they run off, skittering delightedly away. He sits back, laughing to himself, covering his mouth to stop it’s habitual loudness. He worked with his local youth centre, before he moved, doing art with the kids. He misses that already. He hasn’t found anything like it here yet. He’s contemplating where he could look, wondering if there might be something here at the library, when a shadow falls across him. He looks up and sees Athos, arms crossed. 

 

“I’ve had a complaint from a parent. Apparently you told the kids you were a giant, and you were going to steal their noses and then consume them in some kind of Jack and the Beanstalk, cannibalistic ritual that would make you bigger,” Athos says. 

 

Porthos laughs, not bothering to restrain it this time. It rings out and he stops, a little embarrassed. 

 

“Yeah, that’s not what I told ‘em,” Porthos says. “I just threatened to take me nose off. They were teasin’ me about snoring.”

 

“Right,” Athos says. “Just passing it along. She can see me talking to you, it’ll make her happy. Thanks.”

 

Porthos remembers his cape, and fingers the edging, twitching his elbow to show off the lace. He glances up at Athos, but Athos is not paying the slightest bit of attention. Porthos gets to his feet and stretches, shaking himself so the cape falls in drapes around him, the tailoring showing him off. Athos still doesn’t show the slightest bit of interest. Porthos sits again, disappointed. The cloak was definitely not a fashion item, afterall. 

 

When Porthos goes back in on Monday, desperate for a change of scene, bringing his laptop to finish filling in the report he’s creating for a big old Victorian house that he wants listed, the cloak is back. No, it’s a different cloak. It’s a little shorter, a riding cloak in three pieces, so the arms are free. It’s a purple-ish, wine-y, Tuscan red, with rosewood pink embroidery around the bottom. Porthos beams at it. He leans on the desk Athos is behind. 

 

“Hi,” Porthos says. 

 

“Can I help?” Athos asks. “Oh, you’re reading Forster? Did he you know, he was a really sad, conflicted person, but then he went to Edward Carpenter’s house and George Merrill gave his bottom a pat, and he embraced the gay.”

 

“I… don’t think that’s quite true,” Porthos says, a little mystified. “Surely there was more to it.”

 

“Obviously. I’m being facetious. He really did get him bum felt up, and his sexuality affected his writing hugely. He wrote Maurice. Did you read Maurice?”

 

“No,” Porthos says.

 

“I’ll find it for you,” Athos says, and does so. 

 

Porthos reads it in a single sitting, marvelling at it. It’s hilarious, terrible, absurd, so so very classist and weird, but also wonderful. It has a happy ending, and Porthos, once he’s put it down, feels a little like crying. Athos sweeps past, cloak billowing, and falters. Then he grins. 

 

“It does that, doesn’t it?” Athos says, picking up the book and stroking the cover reverently. 

 

“I don’t think he understood Classics history,” Porthos mutters, rubbing at his eyes. His binder’s feeling a bit tight. 

 

“Yeah, Modernist appropriation was fun,” Athos says, and wanders off, with the book. 

 

Porthos is completely baffled by the exchange. He’s impressed by the cloak, though, and goes around the shops again, looking for something similar. He doesn’t find anything similar, but he does find a replica 16th century cape, off the shoulder, crimson, embroidery ridiculously ornate. The embroidery is coming undone, and some of the seams need re-stitching, so it’s in Porthos’ budget. He snaps it up and spends the evening in front of the telly, sewing. 

 

He gets it finished by Friday. He means to go to the library to show it off, but the week is long and tiring and he has to go out to a site, and he has to go into the office three times for meetings, and he ends up exhausted and in tears twice. He feels emotionally drained, and so he stays at home, half-arses his work, and eats a tub of Ben and Jerries. 

 

Porthos goes on Saturday, instead, cape jauntily over a deep purple shirt, lace panels over the shoulders, a wide collar, patterned with little maroon fleur de lys, and skinny jeans. His shoes have silver toes, shiny black, a panel across the arch. He feels very stylish. He browses for a while, not spotting Athos anywhere, and picks up The Crying of Lot 49. He wanders into the music library, thinking about doing some playing, letting out some of the stress from the week. 

 

Athos is at the desk. Porthos goes over and grins, standing with a hip cocked a little bit. He wants to push his chest out like a damned bullfrog, but restrains himself. His breasts are sore from binding so tight all week, for work, and he’s very aware of them. 

 

“Have you read Early Modern revenge tragedy?” Athos asks. 

 

“What?” Porthos says, looking around to see if Athos is talking to someone else. 

 

“The Pynchon. It alludes to it a lot. It’s better if you know the genre.”

 

“Oh. I don’t.”

 

“Read the Spanish Tragedy, and the Duchess of Malfi. Oh, and maybe Medea, Euripedes version. It’s not Early Modern, but Early Modern drew on the Classics. The Romans, actually, because more people knew Latin, the Latin texts were more widely circulated, so Sencca’s versions were better known. But Euripedes is better.”

 

“Right,” Porthos says. 

 

“I’ll get those for you, take this back until you’ve had a look.”

 

Athos takes away the Crying of Lot 49. Porthos stares after him, then shakes it off and goes to sit at the organ, plunking idly away at some Beethoven he half-remembers. Athos returns with a stack of books, then leaves Porthos alone. Porthos makes himself comfortable by the window and tries to work his way through them. It’s hard going. He’s not ever really read plays before, and all the language is unfamiliar, and it’s all just confusing. He can’t understand a lot of it. 

 

Porthos ends up just sitting, staring ahead, zoning out a little and feeling defeated. He catches sight of Athos and his cloak again, and has one of the random bursts of emotions he’s been getting since the catalyst to move which he isn’t thinking about. He ducks his head and tries to remember the code for the loo, binder tightening around his chest. He can’t remember anything, let alone a sequence of numbers. He gets up and goes to the desk, leaning on it to wait because no one’s there. 

 

“Can I help?” Athos asks, coming over looking at a stack of books. “Oh, it’s you. Hi. Done with those? I can recommend some more.”

 

“Wondered, um… bathroom code?” Porthos asks, trying to form a coherent sentence much more difficult than usual.

 

Athos hesitates, and Porthos is shaken up and panicky enough that it makes him a bit silly. He turns and stumbles away, heading for the stairs, hurrying, making for Marks and Sparks. The stairs come up on him much faster than he expects and he misses the first one. The ground falls away, and he follows it. His stomach flips, and he shuts his eyes, readying for the impact of concrete step to his skull. It doesn’t come. Strong arms stop his descent and he’s pulled away from the edge. 

 

“I was trying to remember it,” Athos mutters. “Geeze you’re dramatic. Come on.”

 

Porthos is left alone in the loo again, and he lies on the floor half naked again, and he cries again. He doesn’t throw up, which is a plus. The crying goes on for a while and turns from panic attack to grief, self pity swallowing him up, leaving him completely and utterly alone, ugly, chest aching, sore breasted. He sits against the wall and weeps, wanting Charon so badly it feels like an ice pick. Despite everything, he wants his friend. 

 

“Are you alright in there?”

 

Porthos nods, then shakes his head, then manages to get hold of himself enough to answer aloud in the affirmative. 

 

“I’m going to leave you, so if you need help, you’ll have to yell really loud.”

 

It makes Porthos laugh, and something warm blossoms in his chest. At the easy way Athos responds to his panic, at the implication that Athos has been standing out there all this time, just in case Porthos might need him. Porthos gathers the cape around himself and huddles into it, letting the last of his sorrow weep its way out of him, then sitting, letting himself be hollow and tired. He emerges with red-rimmed eyes, feeling like he’s been through a car wash without the car. He totters back to the music collection and sits on the stool. 

 

“Cathartic?” Athos asks, making Porthos start a little. “Catharsis is a really interesting, misunderstood idea, actually, and if we’re reading Greek tragedy we should also read about-”

 

“Please,” Porthos croaks, holding up a hand. “Them books are way over my head.”

 

“Oh .Oh, I’m sorry, I assumed you’d have read things like that before! Stupid, Athos, of course not everyone’s obsessed with Renaissance lit. Okay, okay. Um, Shakespeare? Have you read Shakespeare? No? They’re always doing performances. Maybe start with- oh! We have a recording of Hamlet with Maxine Peake, it’s brilliant. You should start there. And see about getting hold of RTD’s Misdummer Night’s Dream, that was great. Maybe read some Ben Jonson, it’s farce, and with annotations it’s kind of easy? Or poetry, do you like poetry?”

 

Porthos thinks of the spoken word trans poetry open mic night at home. He shakes his head, though, not wanting to be given a huge long reading list. 

 

“We’ve had this poster up for Twelfth Night for ages, they’re performing it in a garden somewhere. I’m going on Friday,” Athos says. 

 

Porthos nods, trying to think how he’s going to remember all these names. Athos is quiet for a while, as if expecting something. Then he shrugs and moves off, returning with a DVD.

 

“I can’t take anything out,” Porthos says. 

 

“Oh, I forgot,” Athos says, looking crestfallen. 

 

He wanders off again, and doesn’t come back. Porthos leaves, going home and sleeping away the afternoon, head aching emptily. He wakes lonely, and looks at his phone, automatically even though he’s been training himself not to, training himself not to endlessly search for messages from them. He spends a quiet day in the house, doing laundry, a bit of mending, reading a few chapters of the doorstep that is Neal Stephenson’s The System of the World. 

 

Porthos stays away from the library, for a few days. He focuses on work, and getting settled, getting to know his neighbourhood. He meets a few friendly stall holders at a food market on Wednesday, and goes along to an open mic evening at the local pub that’s not bad. He doesn’t have anyone to do these things with, and he doesn’t meet anyone he clicks with, to follow up a friendship. He’s not used to spending so much time on his own, it makes him ache. 

 

He looks up RTD’s Midsummer Night’s Dream and watches a few clips, an interview, but can’t find the whole thing. He finds a bookstall at the market and roots through, digging out a few Shakespeares. He works his way through ‘Twelfth Night’ with a dictionary and the annotations. His first thought is that Shakespeare is much more gay than expected. His second is that he should re-read it. Which he does. 

 

He starts to get the hang of the language by the time he makes it through A Midsummer Night’s Dream and Titus Andronicus. He wasn’t really expecting Titus Andronicus. He’d googled it afterwards and discovered that no one expects Titus Andronicus. He finds a free PDF of The Spanish Tragedy and has another go at it, an encyclopedia of Greek myths, a dictionary, and google at his side. 

 

By the time Friday wheels around he hasn’t left the house in two days, hasn’t spoken to anyway save at shops in four. He goes to the library, sits at the organ, puts the headphones in, and plays Fats Waller songs and Scott Joplin Ragtime until he cheers up. He doesn’t seek out Athos, and doesn’t see him at all, until he’s ensconced in his chair with The Spanish Tragedy, a nice annotated edition. Athos gives him a nod. 

 

On Tuesday, when Porthos goes in, Athos calls him over to the desk and gives him a stack of three books- Terry Pratchett’s Wyrd Sisters, Epicoene by Ben Jonson, and the Crying of Lot 49. Porthos wants to ask questions, like what and why and what? But there’s someone waiting behind him and Athos is already turning to them. Porthos moves aside. He feels, oddly, honoured, as if he’s somehow earned the Crying of Lot 49 back. He doesn’t like that. Doesn’t like the implication that Athos is Pygmalioning him, that he’s being taught things, guided, by his better. 

 

He doesn’t say anything, though, just retreats to his corner. He likes the Pratchett, anyhow, as always. He feels strange about Epicoene. He’s seen a lot of cross-dressing in Shakespeare, and he knows about only men on stage and the joke of it. He’s not sure he feels about seeing himself in the joke. He also doesn’t know what to think of Athos giving him this specific book, this text with all it’s little trans ways. 

 

“It’s my favourite Jonson,” Athos says, startling Porthos out of a light doze. “Epicoene. The Alchemist is sheer brilliance, and Volpone is a masterpiece in discomforting farce and political comedy, but I like this one.”

 

“Right. I think most of it still goes over me head.”

 

A small smile of disbelief plays over Athos’ lips, and that’s quite flattering. Porthos puts the book aside and looks at the collection Athos has given him again, thinking about what he knows of Athos. 

 

“I love Early Modern drama, it’s exploration of mutability, it’s exploration of gender, the gruesomeness, the poetry. The contrasts of every-day and absurd. I think it’s so brilliant,” Athos says. “Did you recognise Macbeth in Wyrd Sisters?”

 

“Haven’t read Macbeth.”

 

“Oh. That means you still have it to come, exciting. Did you get to see Twelfth Night?”

 

“No, I read it though.”

 

“Probably a good thing. It was a good production, but they completely failed to understand the humour and nuance of Shakespeare’s gender-play, missed the subtle queer narrative, and turned everything into a big joke. RTD’s interpretation is better. More accurate, in my opinion. Early Modern drama is all about subversion and questioning, especially of desire and love and what makes us up. It was an age of- Sorry. I’m boring you.”

 

“Not at all,” Porthos says. “No, really. You really like this stuff, don’t you?”

 

“I love it. I have a degree and a masters in English lit, I wrote about the period for both dissertations. I had planned to write about the subversion of heternormativity and hetersociability in Early Modern drama, for a Phd, but, here I am.”

 

“What stopped you?”

 

Athos turns and walks off, and Porthos thinks he’s offended. He’s just going to get a chair, though, dragging it over to sit beside Porthos. Porthos laughs, slightly incredulous.

 

“I’m on a break,” Athos says, tone defensive and a little affronted.

 

“Right. Go on, what stopped you becoming doctor Athos of the Library?”

 

“I decided to focus on other things. I read a lot of queer crit, for my masters, and it lead me on a merry chase through all kinds of texts. I read a lot of poetry, and ended up looking at trans and genderqueer spaces, and then I read Orlando and- have you read Orlando? Woolf?”

 

“Yes,” Porthos says, flushing a little. 

 

“Mm. I read Orlando, and Judith Butler, and ended up on Tumblr, and transitioned. I’m a bloke now. All man, real man, hairy chest and beard and everything,” Athos says. 

 

Then he gets up abruptly and walks off. Porthos stares after him. He’s such a strange man. Porthos considers that a lot of it might come from him being a little awkward, but even then. 

 

Next time Prothos goes in, he gets a new stack of books (A Thousand Acres by Jane Smiley, The Colour Purple by Alice Walker, Frog Music by Emma Donoghue). Athos is wearing a cloak that looks like a curtain. It’s appliqued and embroidered all over, has a high collar, sleeves. It’s cinched in at the waist, tailored. It looks seventeenth century, femme, beautiful. Porthos grins, and Athos smiles tentatively back. 

 

“What’s this one, then?” Porthos asks, holding up Frog Music. 

 

“Tragic lesbian burleque murder mystery with good writing,” Athos says. 

 

“And this?” Porthos holds up a Thousand Acres. 

 

“King Lear set in Southern USA. There’s a lot of stuff about canning and preserving, and it’s a bit bleak but fucking fantastic, very evocative. You like Woolf, you’ll like this.”

 

Porthos doesn’t ask about the Colour Purple, he knows Alice Walker and has read this one. He sets it on the counter. 

 

“Read it,” Porthos says. 

 

“Oh? Have you read Bad Feminist by Roxanne Grey?” Porthos nods. “James Baldwin? Giovanni’s Room?” Porthos hesitates. He hasn’t read that one. Athos smiles and gets it from under the counter. “I have a joke.”

 

“Okay.”

 

“There was a librarian, and one day this rabbit came in. Got any books? The rabbit said. The librarian gave the rabbit War and Peace, and the rabbit went on its way. The next day, it came back, with War and Peace. Got any books? The rabbit said. The librarian gave it Game of Thrones, and it went on its way. The next day, there was the rabbit again. The librarian gave it Orlando, but knew it couldn’t be reading the books this fast, and was curious, so the librarian followed the rabbit. Through the town, through the copse, over a field, to the pond. The rabbit showed the book to a big frog sat on a lillypad. ‘Reddit’, the frog said.”

 

Porthos laughs, more at Athos’ delivery than the joke. The rush to get through it, the careful watch on Porthos’s reaction, the little voices for the rabbit and the frog. Athos beams at getting a laugh, then turns away, cloak billowing around him. Later, after removing his binder in the loo, Porthos sees Athos again, swishing around the hallway, not paying attention to Porthos. As Porthos inches by he hears Athos softly saying ‘swish, swish, swoosh… whoosh’ as he struts, cloak swaying. That makes Porthos below with laughter. Until, that is, he realises Athos looks like he might cry. 

 

“You are the most strange, adorable, wonderful man,” Porthos says. “I was just thinking ‘I probably could get an app for that’, and it made me giggle.”

 

“You were laughing at me,” Athos says. 

 

“A little. In a good way.”

 

“But you didn’t want to come to Twelfth Night with me,” Athos says. Then he blushes bright red, and tries to walk off, trips on his cloak. 

 

Porthos catches him and stops him taking a header down the stairs. 

 

“Returning the favour,” Porthos says, righting him. 

 

“Thank you.”

 

“When did you ask me to Twelfth Night?”

 

“When I told you about it.”

 

“No, you said ‘I’m going to see it on Friday’. That is not an invitation, mate.”

 

“It was implied.”

 

“No, it weren’t.”

 

“Oh. Well, do you want to?”

 

“No, you said it was homophobic and stupid, and that I should watch something else.”

 

“Right. Yes. Do you want to watch something else?”

 

“How about Ghostbusters?” Porthos suggests, hopefully. 

 

“Yes,” Athos says, without hesitation. “I’ve seen it already, but yes, I’ll watch it again.”

 

Porthos beams at him. 

 

They agree to dress in evening clothes. Porthos wears his Victorian cape and his smart black trousers, the expensive silk shirt, a bowtie. Athos, to Porthos’ surprise, wears a conservative, beautifully tailored, suit. 

 

“I got it the first week after top surgery,” Athos says. “As a treat. To get something that made me look masculine and fitted.”

 

“It’s nice,” Porthos says. “It looks like it was personally tailored to you.”

 

“It’s made-to-measure,” Athos says. 

 

Porthos takes his arm, and escorts him into the cinema. It’s Athos’s local, a little independant place, rather than the Odeon. Porthos had suggested it, not knowing it was near Athos, because he likes it. Athos has never been before. Porthos buys him the poncy popcorn with the strange flavours, and a bottle of pink lemonade. 

 

Somehow, Porthos doesn’t get home until nearly three am. The cinema has a bar, and once the show was over, they’d sat there long into the night, as they were cleaned up around. They’d eventually been kicked out and had gone for a walk around the neighbourhood, still talking. Porthos had walked Athos home afterwards, and they had kissed. Now he’s lying in bed, reliving every moment of it, running it over and over in his head. 

 

He doesn’t feel quite so lonely afterall. 


End file.
